hoosierhunter47 Posted August 5, 2011 Report Share Posted August 5, 2011 hey all who ever has an opinion or suggestion!!...I am the president of a fishing club that has an 8 acre fishing pond that is a very old body of water that has some very nice fish in it. to get to the point I am hashing around a size and bag limit on our largemouth bass..any suggestions!!??...the other day a member caught a 6.5 lbs. large mouth and kept it after me tryng to get him to take pics and measurements and throw it back...also he had on 2 other dinks on his stringer as well...if its decent size crappie or channel cats ...great keep em..im all for catching, eating, and also releasing fish but iwould love to put a limit on this....Central Indiana...big catfish and largemouth bass!!..any ideas and again thanks!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
killer711 Posted August 5, 2011 Report Share Posted August 5, 2011 why did he keep the bass? they taste like crap Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoosierhunter47 Posted August 5, 2011 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2011 killer....it is a membership based pay lake so i can only give limits to fish and cant make people throw them back...i am wanting to put somewhat of a slot limit or a size limit on large mouth for this very reason..if you want to eat bass go ahead but i feel that the 6 pounders out there are more of a good sport fish for catch a release...so if anyone has any input please feel free to reply and killer..yes i agree..id take crappie and even channel cats over bass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperMn106 Posted August 8, 2011 Report Share Posted August 8, 2011 It all depends on what you want to do with the pond. You must take some bass out to help balance the population. It would really help if you knew about the average size bass that was in there. You dont want to put a bigger slot limit in there if most of your bass are under that. It will aslo helping knowing about on average how many bass you catch per day. Do you want to make it so lake has a bunch of big ones or just a place to go and catch fish. With a guy catching a 6.5 lber I am assuming it has some giants in it. If it had good numbers of fish I would think of doing a slot of 14-18. You could only keep 1 over 18" and 4 under 14". I am not sure about the Indiana DNR but i know down here the DNR will come out and shock your pond and help you manage it for free. You could check into that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoosierhunter47 Posted August 20, 2011 Author Report Share Posted August 20, 2011 Mike...sorry it took so long to respond...been one of those months....yes there are some nice fish in the "pit"..i call it that because when the interstate came through they dug this massive pit for an overpass and now we are blessed with a place to fish locally....we lease the land and pit from a landowner and created the fishing club it works well but managment can always improve or have new ideas so im just trying to keep every member happy..."trying"...thanks again for the input and we are having a meeting to throw some ideas around...i have an email in to DNR and am awaiting response but its gettin to b that time to start thinkin about gettin combines ready for harvest and bucks and ducks will b cruisin...thanks again!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhino Posted August 23, 2011 Report Share Posted August 23, 2011 (edited) For what it's worth I fish several private ponds/lakes down here. Everyone has some sort of slot limit on it. The lake on our hunting club is about 6 acres. It was initially stocked with Kentucky bass, bluegill, and red ear bream ~25 years ago. Kentucky bass don't grow to the size of the well know Florida or F1 bass. About 4 years ago we paid a company (Southeastern Pond Service) to come shock our lake and make some recommendations on what we could do with it to improve the size of our bass. Besides adding another forage base for our base we implemented a slot limit to take out fish 15" & smaller. All larger fish are released. They recommended we take out ~100 lbs. of bass/year. As for our bream we had hammered them too hard so we took it easy on them while the new forage we added took pressure off the bream. We're still using that slot limit. On a friend of mine's place they have a 38 acre lake that was initially stocked in Florida Bass and blue gill about 15 years ago. About 8 years ago they added Threadfin shad for additional bait fish for the bass. About 6 years ago the added Coppernose bluegill. The guy that initially was in charge of managing the lake did a pitiful job by being too strick on taking bass out. It became overpopulated and the bass didn't have a chance to grow to their protential. About 10 years ago a friend of mine took over the management and 1st thing he did was have Southeastern Pond service come shock it and give them their recommendations. By following their recommendations that lake has turned into a fantastic bass lake for lunker bass. They annually take ~1,500 lbs. of bass out. They also pressure the bream as best the can. Any bass over 16" is released, no exceptions. I've enjoyed some fantastic bass fishing with my buddy there, especially in the spring. The biggest one I've caught there so far is 10 lb. 6 oz. but bass have been caught there over 14 lbs. It's pretty common to fish that lake, particularily in the spring and cathc multiple fish over 6 lbs. Another lake I've been fishing is fairly young and it's ~18 ac. It was stocked with F1's 6 years ago now. we gained access to fish it the 3rd year and we were catching fish from 3.5 to a little over 5lbs. then. The following year we had no problem catching fish over 6lbs. That year we were asked to release all bass over 16" except we could keep big one if we wanted. We released all the big ones. Didn't get a chance to fish it this past spring. Now with all that said...you can't please everyone so do what you think is best for the management of the lake. If that means catch and release on larger fish over 16" so be it. You should also consider the total amount of bass in pounds you should be removing annually too. As for big bass caught, by taking length and girth mesaurements along with a few pictures a replica for a mount looks better and last longer than the real thing. Lets the fish grow to be caught another day when he's bigger too. Edited August 23, 2011 by Rhino Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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